Behind the corner
Dear Diary:
I was in town for my high school reunion, and I was looking for a shoe repair shop. A doorman on West 57th Street directed me to an “on the subway”.
As I went down a flight of stairs to the station, I saw a small coffee shop.
“Do you know where the shoemaker is?” I asked the man behind the counter.
He smiled.
“It’s me!” he said.
I held up my shoes, the broken strap dangling.
He looked around and made a gesture that indicated he was alone in the store.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “I’ll work for you behind the counter if you want to fix my shoes.”
I was only joking, but he nodded, took off his apron, held it out and beckoned me behind the counter.
I put on the apron as he explained the operation: Here’s the cash register. Coffee and bagel is $1.75. Here are the milk and coffee cups.
Then he walked out the door and disappeared.
I was so surprised that I just stood there looking around. There was a grill, a sign advertising a scrambled egg breakfast special, a candy display, soft drinks.
A customer came in.
“Please don’t make her want the special,” I begged in silence.
“I have a terrible craving for a peppermint patty,” she said. “Do you have that?”
I looked at the candy counter and much to my relief I didn’t see one. I wouldn’t have to guess what I’d ask for it. Crisis averted.
A few minutes later the man returned with my repaired shoes. I returned the apron, paid him the $4 he asked for, and joked that this was my new job.
† Janet Poutre
Chelsea Sidewalk
Dear Diary:
I walked alone in Chelsea in the late 1980s. As I approached two construction workers on the sidewalk, I braced myself for the possibility of them making provocative remarks.
Just as I got next to them, one called out in a loud and happy voice.
“Those are the cutest socks!” he said.
It made my day.
— Karen Lee Schmidt
Regular, a play in one short act
Dear Diary:
A convenience store at a gas station, Staten Island. Summer. Present.
TOM, a man in his mid-fifties, approaches the counter, where ATTENDANT, a man about 30 years his junior, stands behind the till, staring at his cell phone. TOM pulls out his wallet.
TOM
Thirty dollars, unleaded.
SERVICE
Normal?
TOM
It says “lead free,” but I guess, yeah…normal.
ATTENDANT stares at TOM, who hands him two twentys. OPERATION closes the sale.
TOM
You know, there used to be plain and lead-free. When you say normal, you mean lead-free. Normally lead-free. Unlike plus or premium. Although it says “lead free” on the pump… Normally, back in the day I think was lead free even though it wasn’t listed.
(Rhythm)
You’re too young to remember that.
TOM walks to the door.
SERVICE
Change.
TOM turns around. OPERATOR hands out a $10 bill. TOM takes it.
TOM
Thank you.
(Light goes out.)
— Tom Diriwachter
“Untitled”, 1986
Dear Diary:
I was at the Museum of Modern Art. After reading the curator’s blurb on a wall over the wooden bed that the artist Robert Gober had built himself, I turned to check it out.
It looked like any normal single bed I’d ever slept in. A pair of white knee-high boots and a small, fashionable backpack leaned against one leg.
Wait a second!
Under the sheet and the purple blanket was a woman who looked back at me. I made a pointless comment. She smiled politely, then closed her eyes to pretend she was asleep.
I went straight back to the blurb on the wall to find out if I had missed anything about the piece being performance art.
My answer came from the mouth of a guard who rushed from an adjacent gallery and ordered the woman to get out of bed.
She sat on the edge of the bed, pulled on her boots, got up, put on her backpack, and walked over to the white wooden platform on which was Jeff Koons’ “Pink Panther.” She stepped on it and picked up the smartphone she had used to record herself. Then she walked away, slowly and stylishly.
Later, I returned to Gober’s artificial bed and chatted briefly with a guard standing next to it. I told her I had seen what had happened before and asked if she had made the bed.
A trustee had been called in to do it, she said.
— Bob Siegel
Finally warming up
Dear Diary:
Now that it’s finally getting warmer, I put on the spring version of my uniform: black T-shirt, loose black jeans, beige sneakers and tortoiseshell glasses. My hair was behind my ears and the canvas tote slung over my shoulder.
I was on my way to get Thai food with a friend when I looked across Willoughby Street to Flatbush Avenue and saw him: loose black jeans, black T-shirt, beige sneakers, tortoiseshell glasses, hair behind the ears and an overstuffed canvas satchel.
He seemed to be somewhere important, maybe the airport.
He pointed at me.
I be back.
We both burst out laughing and went our separate ways.
—Keighly Baron
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Illustrations by Agnes Lee
